


The One Who Knows You Best

by Harukami



Category: Death Note
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-20
Updated: 2005-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-05 18:14:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not safe for work due to sexual content (both with the pairing and not). No actual spoilers, but though it's set before volume 5 of the manga, there's characters focussed on in here who don't appear until chapter 60 or so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Who Knows You Best

  
It's not that he likes Light despite the fact that Light's Kira. And he has no doubt in his mind that Light is Kira. He knows it is not 100% certain that this is the case, but although he has all the percentages ready to hand, they are ultimately unimportant. He knows Light is Kira. He can see it in Light's eyes sometimes when he's surprised. It hangs around Light in a strange sort of scent, as if all the people he's killed have breathed their last breaths onto him and left him touched, not quite within normal human sense, but nevertheless reeking of it.

Oh, to assume that he likes Light _despite_ being Kira would be a logical thing to do, but L knows it's not the case. If _that_ were the case, he'd have failed already. He'd have separated the two on some level.

"It's because you are Kira," L muses aloud, plucking at his lower lip between two fingers.

Light's head jerks around and he scowls at L a moment later, a look of boredom crossing his face. "This again."

"Well," L says, and looks up at him. "Of course this again. Because you're Kira, as I said."

Light blinks, then snorts. "We're going around in circles again," he says, blandly. "Pass over the recent reports; even if you've only got eyes for me as Kira, I'd rather take the chance to find the real culprit and clear my name."

"Mm," L says, and picks up the folder. Only he has looked at it so far, and he pretends to leaf through it, wrists crooked. "I wonder if there's a connection in the names of the victims. It's not like there were too many with that name, but --"

"I'll have to see it," Light says, "Before I can comment on any connections I see or not."

L tilts his head at Light, eyes wide, and passes the folder over. It was too easy a trick to get caught in, after all, and that is one of the reasons he likes Light.

Light's so very _good_ at this, after all. L's fingers twitch on his knees as he watches Light read through the folder in as careful detail as if he didn't know all the murders personally. Light's so very _good_ at it. He gives _meaning_ to all those pointless, empty years where everything was too easy, too perfectly defeated, too ultimately meaningless.

One way or the other, this is going to end with one of them dying -- L murdered when he falls to Kira or Kira's execution -- but whoever's the one to lose, L thinks that neither of them will be lonely.

***

This is one of the few things Near and Mello can agree on, really -- that L is a brilliant madman who's thrown himself so much into the Kira case that he may never come out again.

Near follows the case as best he can and knows Mello is doing likewise. There's not much he can do -- direct information is scarce, as L does not send it himself, but they have access to all the news available, and web rumours, and both are smart enough to put parts of things together. Not much -- they can't work with anything they can't know, after all.

But Near knows that L is deeply, personally involved in this case. He knows that L has shown himself, L is working with his face bare and his resources diminished, and that means, Near thinks, that L believes Kira is one of the people he may come in contact with.

He can tell the day Mello draws the same conclusion because Mello comes in from recess battered and bruised and not permitted to go anywhere but their shared dorm room and his classes for the next few days. It is tiresome, Near thinks, that he too must be punished for Mello's emotional indiscretion; it's not as if he wants to spend that much time with Mello. He spends his time instead in the hall as much as possible, building up a puzzle. It stretches from wall to walls and he occasionally has to sit back and watch the other orphans walk on it to get where they're going.

And eventually he has to go into their room anyway because it's time for lights out and he finds Mello already in bed, a dark hunched figure under the covers.

That's tolerable, at least, and Near climbs into his own bed, turns off his light, faces the wall.

"Kira's really brilliant, isn't he?" he hears muttered from the other bed.

For a moment, Near doesn't think it's worth answering, but the silence's expectant and he says, finally, "You always have had a knack for stating the obvious, Mello."

"Oh, shut up," Mello mutters. There's silence a while longer -- twenty minutes or so, long enough for someone to fall asleep, and then Near, still awake, can hear Mello start to jerk himself off, not as quiet or as careful as he probably thinks he's being.

Moving would just alert Mello that he was still awake and that would be awkward at best. Near closes his eyes at the sight of the wall, wonders vaguely if Mello is thinking of L or Kira or nobody at all as he does that, and wills himself somewhere far away.

Japan, maybe.

***

"Light-kun."

Light glances over, pausing in the act of packing his back. L is watching him with distant, wide, alien eyes. "What?"

"I was wondering," L said, "if you could stay late today."

"Everyone else is already gone," Light said, and wondered if L would take that as a veiled threat; it was just the two of them. But then, if L died now, everyone would know who had done it. "Why should I stick around longer? I have a social life, after all."

"Ah," L said, and nodded. "Your girls."

Light frowned at him. "That makes it sound somewhat perverted, Ryuuzaki. There's nothing wrong with dating."

"No," L said, and tilted his head. "You are in an awkward situation as the only son as well, aren't you? Especially when under investigation like this. If you die, you will be letting your father down. The family name, and all."

"If I die," Light says irritably, "It'll be because I've been found to be Kira and then I hope I'd have too much shame in being that sort of person to have wanted to carry the family name on anyway. Fortunately, there shouldn't be a problem."

L watches him, and chews on the tip of his thumb.

Slowly, Light begins to unpack. "All right," he says. "It's nothing I can't interrupt anyway if you want to work more."

It's a game of push and pull, really; you can twist a man around that way, get him tangled.

They work for a little while and nothing's getting done -- as appropriate -- and Light finally asks, casual, "Mentioning that, children -- you're a bit older than me, aren't you? Do you have any children of your own?"

L looks surprised. "Children," he says. "What do you mean?"

Exasperated, Light says, " _Children_ , Ryuuzaki. Someone to carry on the family name. You're educated enough that I imagine you know how they come about."

"Ah," L says. "Children. Someone to carry on the family name? Perhaps, it's a necessary thing. But I haven't -- _had_ children, no."

It wasn't much of a hope of finding out anything anyway. Light makes a noncommittal noise.

"No women to have them with," L says. "My preferences lie elsewhere." He stares at the piece of paper thoughtfully for a long moment. "I would make a terrible father, I think."

L has revealed something like that and for a moment, Light's taken aback; it's more forthright than he's used to, although with L, he should be used to surprises. A moment later, his eyes narrow; saying that sort of thing, making that sort of confession about his preferences -- L expects to be seduced.

Light could dodge it easily enough if he wanted to. But it's not that sort of thing; it's the friendship game all over again. He hadn't backed down from that.

And besides, this is part of the fun of it, isn't it? Rising to the challenge and winning despite L's best efforts. Something like this is only a trap if he lets it be.

"That sort of preference," Light says, and pitches his voice embarrassed. "Ah --"

"My apologies, Light-kun," L says. "Did I make you uncomfortable?"

"No, I just -- hadn't expected to hear anyone talk about that so openly," Light says. He glances aside, as if pretending to look at the papers. "It's always seemed to me to be the sort of thing you can't -- but then, you don't have an identity, right? There's nobody you could humiliate if something like that came out. Instead, I..."

L makes an interested noise, and then picks up a cookie and begins chewing. It is hard to shake the feeling that Light's the latest entertainment, but he has to; that's a constant with L nevertheless.

"Ah, it's nothing," Light says.

"Light-kun," L says. "If you think there is a chance you'll worry about it and be unable to stop thinking on it and thus interfere with your work, I would truly prefer you come out with it. It is just us here, after all."

He forces himself to clench his fists and lets them tremble as if he were struggling. "No, it's nothing that would interfere with my work," he says. "And it doesn't matter anyway -- I think about it sometimes, but -- dammit, Ryuuzaki, I _know_ the type of person you are, you know what I'm trying to say!"

"I do," L says, his eyes wide. "You are trying to say either that those girls have been cover for your other passions or, perhaps, that you enjoy their company well enough but you think about men as well."

"Something like that," Light mutters. "It's -- Ryuuzaki, don't tell my father. He'd be horrified. It's bad enough he knows you suspect me of being Kira; this would just be insult to injury."

L blinks slowly. "Who would mention that sort of personal business?" he asks. "It's unrelated to the case, after all."

"Yeah," Light says. "Besides. It's not as if it'd ever happen."

"I'm not sure," L says, "that you have reason to say that. You are an extremely attractive man, Yagami Light, and I am sure that if you want for company, male or female, you would not have trouble finding it."

It's L's version of playing hard to get; Light thinks; this part of the game comes from seducing L without dropping his cards with nerves. It's always been that way between them, a constant push to see how close one could get to the other without revealing everything.

"Would you," Light blurts. "-- No, Ryuuzaki. That's not, it's not appropriate, I'm sorry."

"I am not," L says, suckling at the tip of his thumb, "an extremely attractive man. I am not even a slightly attractive man, in fact. It would surprise me greatly to hear that you were attracted to me, but that seems to be what you are angling towards."

L is right about that, at least. But Light's dated and slept with girls who've done less for him; he can do this. "No, maybe not -- in the usual way," Light says. "But you're -- you're _brilliant_ , Ryuuzaki. Wrong, sometimes, but brilliant. Working beside you, I feel challenged. You -- _interest_ me." He ups the ante. "In a way that's not just physical."

"Ah," L says, thumb lowering, eyes wide. "That's interesting."

Here, Light thinks, is where he leans in, puts a hand to one cheek -- cool to the touch, strangely -- and leans in to kiss. Here's the moment where he hesitates and then does it anyway, as if he's fought himself and come out the victor. Here is where he grows daring with the kiss against those strangely, paper-dry lips, where he presses his tongue into L's mouth, feels L's head tilt as he improves the angle.

It all follows from there and he plays eager but nervous, gropes like a boy who's never -- well, never touched another man like this before and he doesn't have to fake the inexperience, at least. Easy enough to figure out responses, at least, and work with those.

L's own touches are strange, light and fleeting, at angles that don't seem right for his hands, his mouth tastes of sugar and his tongue twists and turns and dances in a way too lively for himself.

Here is where, Light thinks, Kira would show restraint, but to L, he must refuse to be Kira, and so he acts like an eager teenager, shoves L down to the floor, fumbles with pants and humps and gasps and groans and generally makes a fool of himself until he comes and L comes and he lies there sprawled on top of L and watches L breathe shakily through the aftermath, staring at the ceiling with wide eyes and no expression at all.

Light turns his face away a little and smiles, because the challenge has been met and answered and he is fairly certain he hasn't lost.

***

Being trapped indoors is driving Mello crazy and he presses both hands to the glass hard enough to leave perfect palm prints on it for a few moments before the fogged outline fades.

There's nothing to do that's interesting -- he's read all his books, he's read all the reports, he's _done_ all his work for three weeks in advance at this point. Everything's dull.

He throws himself onto the bed for a bare few minutes before he throws himself off it again, stomps out into the hall.

Near's working on a puzzle out there, but that's nothing new and nothing interesting; Near's always working on puzzles, crouched over and twisted and with his head ducked, not lifting it to the sky at all. Mello looks down; there's no room to walk and so he sneers slightly, walks across the puzzle itself. He's barefoot, and so pieces stick, peel away; when he gets to the other side, he can see footprints left in the puzzle.

Near has raised his head and is watching Mello with emotionless displeasure.

"I'm going to Mr. Roger," Mello says. "Watching the public news isn't enough; Roger may have some more information on file about Kira than we do. I can talk him into giving it over."

He sees Near's expression shift to thoughtfulness and after a moment, Near shrugs and rises, hunched over and uncomfortable, and follows Mello.

There's a strange sense of excitement in that, in Mello calling the shots and Near wordlessly following, that makes it almost all right to be in this much proximity to him.

"Do you think," Mello says, as they walk, more for a chance to fill the uncomfortable silence of Near's gaze than for anything else, "do you think L might come back and share with us the case results?"

"It's not a 0% chance," Near says. "If we can learn from it."

"I thought so," Mello said. "And who knows! Maybe L gets lonely without us."

He can feel, _sense_ the scorn before Near even says anything, before he even glances aside to see the way Near's looking at him.

"Mello. L barely returns, and when he does, it is only to further our education in our goal to become him," Near says, with the patience of the superior. "L is not lonely for us. Moreover, being the type of man he is, I doubt L is ever lonely at all."

"Of course not," Mello says, defensively. "He's L! It was a joke! And who asked you to come along to see Roger anyway?"

"You're not allowed there without accompaniment," Near points out, tonelessly. "You're being punished."

Mello fumes and lets Near follow him. L _could_ be lonely, he thinks almost violently. He _could_ be.

But then, after all, Near has always been the one getting better marks, the one more likely to be picked to inherit the name of L. Near's just the one who knows L better. So probably, L isn't lonely after all.

Mello thinks, though, that if all things were fair in the world, L would be.

"You're thinking something useless, aren't you," Near says.

"Clearly," Mello says, tone cutting, "you know me too well."

***

"Light-kun?"

"Hm?"

"Are you leaving?"

"It's late. And we're done here."

"Ah. Good night then, Light-kun."

"..."

"Light-kun?"

"Good night, Ryuuzaki."  



End file.
